Ben & Jerry’s Guitar Story

Ben & Jerry at Filoli Gardens

I recently had the opportunity to attend a live performance by Benett Zussman and Jerry Snyder. They are both performing artists, instructors, and an absolute pleasure to watch and listen to them play.

Since their performance was taking place at Filoli Gardens, it would seem a shame to not bring my camera along to take some photographs:

Ben and Jerry At Filoli Garden

The Guitar Story

Ben & Jerry have a regular performance entitled, “The Guitar Story”, in which they will be performing a series of pieces from different time periods in history leading up to the current day.

They have two performances coming up in June 2013. So if you enjoy the guitar played well, their performance would be worth attending.

The Guitar Story : http://sbgs.org/ai1ec_event/the-guitar-story/

Going Static!

While I love the ease with witch WordPress makes managing content and interfacing with third party sites, I really really hate some aspects of the performance hits. I also hate risking getting hit with something if a plugin/module/core has a new exploit out.

So, spent the past weekend dinking around to make the site hostable in a static format. And so far, it works great!

Here’s to going static!

“Paths of Light”

Paths of Light

I shot “Paths of Light” from Twin Peaks, overlooking San Francisco. Using a long exposure, I timed the capture of the traffic below to create beautiful streams of light below, while in the distance, the moon casts a pale and beautiful glow over the bay, beyond the city’s lights.

The Canon Pro9000 Mark II Printer: Why No banner Mode!?

Canon Pixma Pro9000 Mark II (image from DandyGadget.com)

A while back, when Canon was doing their DSLR+Printer rebate offer, a whole slew of Canon Pro9000 Mark II printers flooded the market(eBay, Amazon, Craigslist, etc.). I went the Craigslist route and purchased one from a cheerful fellow who had bought his with his new Canon Rebel T3i. I’ve been enjoying using the printer on and off since. Well, let’s face it, it’s a big printer and is meant for making big prints. I’ve made a few 13″x19″ prints on Canon’s Platinum Glossy papers and love them. I’ve also made some prints on Canson’s Platine Fiber Rag, which I adore.

Night Panorama of San Francisco, shot from Twin Peaks

I recently shot the above night time panorama of San Francisco from Twin Peaks. I love this shot and wanted to make use of the 13″x38″ metal frame I had picked up a while back, with a panorama in mind. This one fit the dimensions almost to a tee.

As any Canon Pro9000 Mark II owner knows… you can’t print longer than 26.6″. Yes, 26.6″ on a 13″ wide printer.

Why, Canon? Why!?

Now, of course, I didn’t have any 38″ long paper on hand. But I did make use of two sheets of the 13″x19″ Canson Platine Fiber Rag, and after some cropping in Lightroom, I got the image printed out as two 13″x19″ and attached them together to form a 13″x38″ panorama.

Panorama printed as 2 13x19 prints in a 13x38 frame, hung on wall.

Panorama printed as 2 13×19 prints in a 13×38 frame, hung on wall.

Personally, I like how it turned out, with the exception of the seam in the middle. Close inspection will reveal that there is a minor misalignment at the point of the seam, something hard to avoid if printing borderless.

What I would have liked to have been able to do was print a 13″x38″ single sheet. They sell the paper and I would have liked to have printed it. Canon’s new Pro1 printer supports printing to 44″. There is NO reason why Canon can’t release an updated driver to handle printing 44″ on the Canon Pro 9000 Mark II. From what most people have gathered, the limitation is a SOFTWARE limitation in the binary driver.

Needless to say, I’m a bit irked by it. Even programs like Qimage can’t work around it because the printer doesn’t support roll/banner mode, ie. printing a second sheet without performing an eject/page load operation.

However, in order to get banner printing capability in a 13″ wide printer, I would have to look at investing in one of their ipf line of printers, which are quite a bit more than I want to invest in a printer, $1200+. The Canon Pro9000 Mark II cost me $140.

The other option is to go with Epson printers, which can all do 44″ paper, or with the new drivers, can all go to 129″.

The thing is, I like my Canon Pro 9000 Mark II’s output. The prints are just gorgeous. Not only that, it uses the same ink cartridges as my Canon Pixma ip4500. So there is no need to buy two different ink sets, just one kind and I’m good for both printers.

Currently looking at possible ways to bypass the limitation. If anyone knows of how to get the printer to print past the 26.6″ limit, I’d like to know.

Update:

Alas, if only ImagePrint supported Canon printers… but it seems that Epson is the brand of printers that gets all the love.

Whichever route I go, new gear means syncing some serious cash. Better clear off my personal projects list and do some Spring cleaning before even considering going down that expensive and entangled route. :)

Something For The New Year

Well, 2012 has come to an end and 2013 has arrived.

Like so many others, I’ve got some resolutions that I want to commit to in the coming year:

Eat healthier : Like so many folks in the United States, I’m not exactly a healthy eater. I should be and I certainly can be. Here’s to working towards a healthier eating plan for 2013. Main goal? Reduce or cut out as much animal protein as possible.
Minus Google+ : Let’s face it. Google+ is a decent platform, but they keep changing the formatting, which breaks importing, which means my site ends up needing constant maintenance. Not a good thing. So I’m disabling the Google+ plugin on this site as well as un-publishing all of the previously published imported Google+ posts. Brittle = bad.
Take More Photographs : Yes, I have a camera. I have a desire to make beautiful photographs. I intend to do so… more so… in 2013.
Finish My Projects : I’ve got a desk cluttered with various DIY projects. I need to get through that project list so I can reclaim some desk space and some sanity. Ultimately, the goal is to take all my DIY project notes and publish them. Should be fun.

That’s pretty much it. I’m sure more resolutions will occur to me as time goes on. But those are my core goals for this upcoming year.

I managed to take in a few long exposure panoramas before the year ended.

Links:

Night Photographs

Inspired By Others

A Small Case of Mistaken Identity

Occasionally, I get interesting little tidbits of entertainment from certain facets of real life. Case in point, people with similar names to me. Apparently, my name is fairly common. As such, there are in excess of 600 “Wing Wong”(s) in just the bay area alone. So it was inevitable that I would eventually encounter a collision at some point.

Yesterday, I got an email from a photographer I had contacted a while back. He asked in passing whether or not I was the “Wing Wong” who was recently featured in RangeFinder magazine. I just HAD to check it out. If you’re curious, facebook profile.

Apparently, he’s based out of San Francisco and is a working photographer and designer. Very very cool. No blood relation though.

What To Do When Inspiration Strikes

While it was an interesting case of serendipity, I didn’t think much of it. A couple of Facebook posts, and some inspirational ideas on the commute home. Slept on it. This morning, on the train ride in, I thought to myself, “why not?”.

So, I went and checked out the RangeFinder online site and found that they had a contest going on, which was about to close shortly. I took a couple of minutes to download the original of my “Crystal Forest” shot and uploaded a resized version, after paying my $35 image fee.

For those interested and who’d like to support me with a People’s Choice vote, here is my submission:

Crystal Forest – Wing Tang Wong